Hesitation greets me like a neighbor
Boring its eyes into my skull with a friendly smile
It has no face and no skin
It doesn’t even have eyes
The morning air is hot and solid
Like water but thicker
My hands are sweaty and covered in blisters
And my legs, do not respond
The air of dirty mornings
Shifts in scent
Till the sour tang of violence
Is hanging to interrupt
My soft bones of hesitation
Listen to be called out
For a violent lie
With violent intentions
Are never good for volatile patients
So I did grasp a hope of string
Around my neck did marry me
Such intimate things
To carry me
Away with hesitation and me.
torn between what's good and right
silence at times is quite unbearable
time's a bomb that's unpredictable
casting its fair share of earnest fright
i stumble in the night asking what is real
my heart's no help i don't know how i feel
"I want to be with you. It's as simple and as complicated as that" - Charles Bukowski
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Oh, so you’ve seen better days?
So your shadows walked straighter before,
You’re who you are
and you’re not getting any younger
You said to count me in
Well now I’m counting my blessings
One at a time
to remind me what will be there when you’re not
Is the past behind you?
It seems more like its calling you out to your face
These messages that you ignore
are open doors to the future
Open them wide
so you and your ego can fit inside them
Oh, and how it hurts to be so right
all the time
Your phone is your only life support
and now it’s leading you to
become the things you hate about yourself
It’s ironic how you don’t see it,
looking in a mirror half your life
(She’s on the rise again)
She’s gonna be an internet star!
I’d count your blessings while you can
Your phones your only life support
She was working on being a mountain
but lacked the kind of rocks
that don't roll downhill.
Nobody saw her leave the room
or enter.
Sliding to the furthest corner
she agonized
measuring herself.
Mingling circles
backed their backs away
The girl wanted so much
to say something,
to engage the crowd,
to stand out.
Hesitation inched on.
She disappeared once more
into silence.
i guess theres something right in something wrong but not in incest but maybe in a robin hood situation, its like hesitation before you cut your hair and feel someone stare.
Fair young maiden in shades of blue
Sometimes I'd like to believe it's true
She wants to play me in her game
Like she knew me well by my name
Though her heart could really be pure
But I falter, I'm not so sure
She could be thrilling like a wonder
Or only cares for her plunder
I toured the world in search of deepest cavern,
Into its dark core I yearn to build a castle,
To let my hesitation live the life of his own.
Too much under him I have served
From the infant dawn to the tootless dust,
I have served him enough, haven't I.?
What opulent reward awaits me
For being his only loyal servant?
Procrastination? yeah! procrastination,
A reward of his good for nothing.
#Don't hesitate to do what you belive in.
Maybe I should have told you how much I cared
and admitted how much you mean to me
Maybe I should have opened my heart to you
and revealed my innermost secrets
Maybe I should have let you know that I love you
and could have bared it all
The signs were there if you knew how to read them
~ I waited for you to meet me half way
AP: Honorable Mention 2022
Posted on July 25, 2022
on the way home,
i change the new map
to the longest scenic route
though my Sweets is waiting for me,
i cannot find myself to punctually return
i stop at a newly built rest area because my hypertension is expressing
the mess i made will not go away like my atrial flutter
it just sits in wait like the many times before
my Sweets snaps me out of my fantasy world with a text
always the realist half, she gets on me a bit and asks if i am close to home now
i reply by telling her a multicolored lie about my bladder and a harsh deluge
she replies with an 'unhappy' emoji,
so i start the car, cut on the air, and continue my unfortunate trek back to reality
rental cars and women, tsk tsk, forever the realists
i make it back on time by the skin of my teeth
my Sweets runs to me with open arms and a smile
in my ear she whispers 'i was preparing to kill you'
i reply by whispering in her ear with a sigh of pure contentment 'i know'
Hesitation, our dormant fear
Rising to the surface
Our heart contracts, as these forms near
Oh! Where lies divine grace
Let go hermit, let go
All attachments forgo
Illusion is ego
Agitation
Hesitation
14-January-2022
Quietus
Hesitation has two colourations
First being our ego calculation
The other, cessation in wonderment
Delight of our childlike astonishment
Former contraction, latter expansion
Let time stretched stillness be meditation
Far cry from ego borne agitation
Choose! Foolish sentiment or contentment
Hesitation
Resonation with the love pulsation
As ever present orientation
Joy current, as our native element
Our rapturous being, luminescent
Obviating the need for negation
Hesitation
14-April-2021
The hesitation of spring is found
in the late-season, early-morning snow.
Melting slowly in the warmth of the dawning day.
Imperceptible blossoms, too small to catch
the mirror of the common eye, drink hard.
Then late afternoon, come showers brief and brittle,
pulsating like a thousand heartbeats on the pavement,
with full apology of mist and parted clouds,
revealing sunlight and warmth.
There is no headlong rush of running steps
or breathless shouting voice announcing it’s arrival.
It’s easy-winding melancholy hard
with all attending bumps and bruises;
a game of rough-house football in the yard.
Fun-frantic serious, dragging it’s way into
the late evening dark way past
what we think a spring should be. It’s late.
Offering only excuses of bluster and fuss.
But then I wonder, should we ask?
What spring might think of us.
Pardon me
but aren't you --
Oh, no. You're not
How foolish of me
Please excuse
But, say
Wait a second
Weren't you --
No, I guess not
Sorry, my bad
Ha! I've got it
We met at --
Oh, no we didn't
It was someone else
Mea culpa
What's that?
You're my landlord?
The rent's past due?
Impossible, sir
You must be having a bad day
~ I guess I'll be going my way
Love and lust can sometimes seem the same,
fueling the heart's hesitation.
And eating away at trust's foundation:
tears slowly extinguish passion's flame.
An emotional bumper car ride,
life has you stymied and befuddled.
And reality leaves you muddled,
for fate doesn't seem to be on your side.
With each light lit, a shadow is cast
that tests the resiliency of hope.
And you're left on a slippery slope,
unsure if feelings of love will last.
A poor substitute touted by youth,
lust clings to the pleasures of the flesh.
And tends to go stale: while love stays fresh,
that's the heart's inescapable truth.
At Once
by Michael R. Burch
Though she was fair,
though she sent me the epistle of her love at once
and inscribed therein love’s antique prayer,
I did not love her at once.
Though she would dare
pain’s pale, clinging shadows, to approach me at once,
the dark, haggard keeper of the lair,
I did not love her at once.
Though she would share
the all of her being, to heal me at once,
yet more than her touch I was unable bear.
I did not love her at once.
And yet she would care,
and pour out her essence ...
and yet—there was more!
I awoke from long darkness,
and yet—she was there.
I loved her the longer;
I loved her the more
because I did not love her at once.
Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly and Grassroots Poetry
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